Some games that use cards determine win or lose according to a predetermined rule that defines combinations of different cards, for example, 52 cards in the card game where each player collects and arranges the cards in hand of each player.
Further, among sport fans of such as soccer and baseball, collection and exchange of cards that bear popular players' photographs, the cards being called “trading cards”, are prevailing.
Various methods of enjoying a game, like card games, according to a predetermined rule using such trading cards are proposed. For example, a proposal has been made by a Japanese provisional-patent-publication No. 2000-288155. In this kind of card game, each of players submits a card of a character printed on the back of the card, and compares magnitude of various capacities of the character (a level value assigned to every character) such that an owner of the card that bears the largest level value wins.
However, in such a card game, for example, there is a problem that rules require complicated combinations of the cards, causing it difficult to learn the game easily.
As a game apparatus that alleviates such a dissatisfaction of a player, a proposal has been made, for example, by a Japanese provisional-patent-publication No. 2000-157744. There, the proposed game apparatus accepts a cassette to which game data is recorded, portable game machines owned by game players are connected by a cable, a card game is provided more easily, by viewing card images displayed on a screen. In this case, win or lose is decided also by character information stored in the cassette that is installed in the portable game machine. In this manner, a game player can enjoy a game by beating a character of the cassette of the counter-player, collecting cassettes of a stronger character.
However, when a game is performed by looking at virtual card screen displayed on the game machine as mentioned above, pleasure of collecting real trading cards cannot be experienced.
Further, with the card game apparatus that generates a game image by reading card data printed on the card, there is a case that card data may be unable to be read due to aging of the card and the like, and a game cannot be started, staying in a standby state and causing delays of the game start.
Further, in such a card game apparatus, it is necessary to entertain a gallery, including an audience and people waiting for game playing, who desire to know how the game is progressing.
Further, in a card game apparatus that allows participation through using the card bearing the card data printed, only the cards that are legitimately purchased can be used. It is necessary to check if a would-be-player owns a legitimate card. Since a coin is not returned even when the would-be-player cannot participate in a game because the card is not presented or the card is not legitimate (an imitation card) after the coin is inserted. In this manner, there is a possibility of a trouble occurring.
Further, it is necessary that the card game apparatus detects not only an ID code for recognizing a card but also a position and direction (angle) of the card. For this reason, if the ID code, the position and the direction (angle) are to be simultaneously analyzed from an image data obtained by an image sensor, for example, a large number of parameters have to be processed in computation, requiring a considerable period of time.
Further, in order to process the computation at a high speed, an effective method is to screen necessary data and to eliminate unnecessary data through processing the data one by one. However, when a conventional 2-dimensional bar code is used as data pattern for recognizing the card, the bar code has to be read in a direction orthogonal to the bars, requiring a detection of the card angle, which increases the number of the parameters to be simultaneously processed, causing a delay in starting a game.